Pops!

I am so grateful I get to stay at home with my funny kiddos. I know how very lucky and blessed I am. I love listening to them play together, this week it was mostly a game called Farm. The girls would all pretend to work downstairs husking corn, milking cows, "tidying up," preparing meals, and getting all ready for when "Pops" aka Zeke comes home. Pantera would really clean the entire downstairs for this game, so it may be my very favorite.

 

Pantera is still watching all the science videos and quizzed me today about how much I know about SARS and drug resistant infections. This is what she studies before bed at night, sweet dreams child. She is a smart little girl and always so quick with words. I can't write down anything she says though, or she gets mad.

 

Although Pantera and I love the tell eachother "Bunk a Head" and imagine different dangerous objects like hatchets, chainsaws, or perhaps a cement pillow to use. This is due to funny Katurah. I was throwing a very light bouncy ball in the air for the kids to catch and it ended up hitting Amari in the head. She cracked up and Katurah wanted a turn, so she brought me a full sized football and said "Bunk a Head?" No I will not throw that at your head crazy, Pantera and I laughed and laughed.

 

Katurah is taking an interest in potty training. When she was trying to go yesterday Amari interrupted her and said she needed to go. So Amari gets on the toilet and goes, and Katurah was so excited "High Bive Amari! I so prou a you!"

 Zeke asked me if Little Critter is a Wookie. I think he might be. He currently carries his two lego star wars books with him everywhere he goes. He loves to talk about Star Wars with anyone who will listen and if he has a question we can't answer (Why did no one tell me to learn all about this before giving birth?!?!) he just proudly says "The Bells will know, they are smart about Star Wars." They are our neighbors who collect star wars stuff, I'm waiting for Zeke to ask if he can move in with them. He gave me a card in church today that said "Dear Mom" on the outside and "Zeke" on the inside. He said he gave it to me because "You take care of me and you are beautiful."

Amari on the other hand informed me that "Me and Dad are gonna have a weddin and when we have our weddin you are gonna stay home with the kids and watch them. Got it?" She got herself dressed to the nines in bright pink pants a purple shirt and sweet boots and said it was her "weddin outfit." My younger sister is getting married next month and Amari has wedding fever bad! She and Zeke painted canvases for "weddin presents" for her new "Uncle Spencer oh and Aunt Sami too." Her picture was "a rainbow but it's mostly black cuz that's my favorite color."

Seneca girl is a dancing machine these days. She does a fabulous spin on her little booty and loves to clap and wiggle with any kind of music. She is trying to climb the stairs now and gets up the first two. It is amazing anyone survives the first years of life, just falling and hurting yourself constantly, learning to use your body is quite the challenge. I love this age personality wise but really hate all the bumps and bruises that go along with it.

The darkside

Jess has been asking how Seneca got so big all of the sudden and claims it has gone by so fast. I on the other hand, know it is from my milk and it has taken forever for her to become semi independent. I joke, I joke, she is trying to do so much and it all seems to happen at the same time. She loves to sing, if she can get ahold of our karaoke machine she will sit and listen to herself for quite awhile. She is the smiliest little girl you will ever meet, as long as I am holding her still. I never realized how important a good umbilical cord cut is at birth, maybe the scissors weren't sharp enough...hmmm.

 Zeke informed me this morning "My nickname is Luke Skywalker! But my real name is Zeke." He is in full Jedi mode these days and it's a good thing because the Sith in our area are out of control. He wanted to show me something and he said "Mom, observe this!" He got the missionary bear at church, (it is a teddy bear I dressed up in a tie and name tag and the kids take turns taking him home to remind them to share the gospel during the week they are to report back to us the following Sunday) he was so excited and when I asked him what he was planning on doing, he pretty much recited exactly what the little girl the week before him did. This included helping her neighbor plant a garden so he has been asking me over and over when we can go to the neighbors and plant a garden. I'm sure they won't mind us digging up their yard right?

 Katurah just copies EVERYTHING her older siblings do these days. We were at the library and they all picked a book, but she was distracted the whole time so we went to check out and she ran over to the shelf, grabbed the first book she saw and happily ran back to me. She is a big kid now. Unfortunately with the amount of potty humor in our home she has picked up some interesting words "Mom, is poop in my buttcrat!" or she points to her cute little booty and says "wook at da MOON!"

Amari has been a bit of a pill lately. She just doesn't seem to want to listen much and when she gets in trouble she tells me "I'm listening to Satan, being good is too hard." Then she changes her mind and says she will listen to Jesus after all. Her friend Vivian was over a couple of times over the past week. They always bring Amari some hand me downs, which Amari treasures. She is so creepy about it "I smell like Bivian! I look like Bivian!" So we pretend that we can't tell them apart and she is so happy!

Maybe this is why she has been misbehaving, has she turned to the darkside?

Pantera has refused to let me take her pictures as usual, someday you will  regret it my child. She had a big stake achievement days activity all day Saturday. She was the only girl from our ward there, makes me miss being out west. She is singing a solo in the Primary program this year and I am encouraging her to sing in sacrament meeting in the next couple of months. She has an amazing voice and I am excited she will have the opportunity to share her talent. We were at the park yesterday and there was a daycare group there. A little 13 month old girl just LOVED Pantera. Everything Pantera would do, just cracked this little one up and as we were leaving she reached up to go with her. The daycare worker said "She has been with us for over a week and wants nothing to do with me! She sees your daughter for 5 minutes and wants to go home with her!" It made Pantera feel pretty darn good.

This was my project for last week. It is all from the cherry wood Jess brought me. I made it as a surprise for a friend who needed a table. We went over to her house Monday night and made her go into her room while we brought it inside and Pantera staged it with flowers and such. Her reaction was priceless!!! "Are you kidding me?!? I don't even know what to say! Savannah!!!" Then she turns to her daughter and son in law who were in on it and said "Did you know about this?!?" It was so fun to build, experimenting with the legs and designing benches, but even better to give it to someone who was so happy for it. Only bad part is now MY table looks not so cute in comparison.

No Dynanite

Oh how we have enjoyed the sun lately! It is amazing how much I took it for granted growing up in Arizona. The kids spend pretty much all day outside if it is not raining and make up some awesome games to play like here I think they are getting some "Chi."

 

Katurah thinks she is too cool for school these days. She can be such a little terd. Like during speech therapy the past two weeks she has just sat and scowled at Mrs.Kristy. As soon as Mrs. Kristy leaves, Katurah is talking and happy again. She is at the age that she is kind of fun to tease because she just repeats everything you say with a no in front of it "No dynamite!" She was so scared of fireworks on the 4th again this year, so much that she wouldn't go out in the backyard again until I cleaned up all the packages. She copied Zeke and asked for a sandwich tonight and when I handed it to her she looked at it and said "What the heck?!?"

 

Katurah and Amari love to play Frozen. Here Amari is Elsa and Katurah is Anna. If you call Katurah the wrong princess name she will flip her lid and run away crying...you have been warned.

Amari is in charge of feeding the cat now. Unfortunately she has been slacking some days. I saw Bluestar was out of food the other day so I asked Amari if she had fed her yet. Amari replied "She doesn't have any food, but it's ok, she's not dead yet." Makes sense, she is going to be a wonderful mother;)  She is so drama about everything and loves to jump to outrageous conclusions just like her big sister. For example if you tell her to go to bed she may just reply "So you never want to see me again and you think I am the worst kid ever?" DRAMA!

 

Seneca is starting to pull herself to stand! She was in her crib fussing and  looked over to see her standing and crying at me all creepy like, it was awesome. She loves when anyone sings "When we're helping we're happy" so much. She will quickly get to a seated position and start waving her arms, then she usually joins in on the tralalala part.

Zeke is obsessed with how cute Seneca is. He told me "The last baby is like the cutest one to ever come out of your tummy!" About 100 times a day he tells her how "adorable" or "precious" she is and makes sure we all acknowledge it as well.

At dinner last night Amari told Jess "Dad, you're a little bit smart, but Mom is all the way smart." Jess told her that's not very nice and she tried to back peddle a bit but Zeke came to Jess' rescue by informing her "Amari, old geezers can be smart." Then looking over at Jess like you're welcome (I may or may not have told him Jess was an old geezer a few weeks ago).

Pantera was sick last night, probably the worst I have seen her in a long time. She seems to be on the mend tonight luckily. She has been watching a ton of science videos that the school gave her access to for the summer. After watching several of these she told me "Mom, I think I know why I have been so short tempered with the younger kids lately." I hadn't noticed but I asked "Why's that?" She replied "Puberty." Ahhh, that explains it. She has already unlocked the secret to womanhood: blame hormones for EVERYTHING.

Here's my latest project...

Jess got a bunch of FREE rough cut cherry wood from a guy at work who knows I'm currently in love with woodworking. This is a queen sized bed with 12 storage drawers, for the cost of screws and wood glue!